Supernova (29 page)

The radio blared rap music, making Dominic cringe. He hated rap music. Well, not all of it. There were some pretty powerful rap songs out there, but the ones where the rappers just went on and on about bitches and hos and booties dropping to the floor – he despised those. Why those douchebags thought that stuff appealed to women was beyond him. It was degrading, and any woman who thought otherwise, lacked any real self-respect.

Gabe was in the middle of dropping it like it was hot when Dominic cleared his throat to get their attention. The music was so loud that neither Kerrigan nor Gabe turned to look at him. So, Dominic walked over to the radio and turned it off.

Kerrigan’s head snapped toward him, and she glared once again, eliciting a sigh from Dominic. This wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Um, I was mid booty pop,” Gabe said, looking at Dominic over his shoulder with his butt stuck out.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Gabe, but I need to speak with Kerrigan for a moment if you don’t mind.” Dominic kept his eyes locked with Kerrigan’s to gauge her reaction.

She rolled her eyes and smacked her lips before turning her attention back to the cupboard.

“I don’t mind at all.” Gabe took a seat at the kitchen table and placed his chin in his hand. He leaned forward, getting comfortable for the show.

“
Alone
, please?”

“Well, I never,” Gabe feigned insult.

“I find that very hard to believe,” Dominic shot back. He smiled and winked at Gabe to make up for the playful insult. “Please?”

“Take your shirt off and give me a little hip thrust while licking your lips, and I’ll consider it. After all, it’s the least you can do for upsetting my boo-boo,” Gabe bargained, only to be met with a warning look from Dominic and an amused giggle from Kerrigan. “Too much?”

“Too much,” Dominic answered.

“Fine then, party pooper. Tehehe,” he laughed, covering his mouth daintily. “That’s funny because I usually love a party in my pooper. Complete with confetti and neon paint…”

“Gabe!” Dominic interrupted, stopping him from going any further.

Gabe stood and grabbed his Bubbletini with a disgruntled huff. “Fine. I just wanted the visual for my alone time, but it’s cool. I’m going over to Syd and Livi’s. Later, bitches.” He snapped his fingers with an air of dismissal and sashayed out of the room, leaving Dominic and Kerrigan alone.

Kerrigan hopped down from the counter where she was perched and threw her towel on the sink, but it slid off and landed on the floor. She ignored it and stomped over to the radio, turning it back on with an exaggerated motion.

“Kerrigan, we need to talk.”

Kerrigan looked at him and, without breaking eye contact, turned the music up as loud as it would go. Then she turned her back on him and walked away. Dominic tried not to be distracted by the tiny shorts she was wearing and how the cheeks of her ass were hanging out of them. When she bent over to pick up the towel, all bets were off.

She was wearing a goddamn thong.

“Are you going to talk or just stand there ogling my ass all day?” Kerrigan asked without even turning to look at him. She must have had eyes in the back of her head, or maybe, just maybe Dominic was literally able to caress her with his eyes alone.

“Can I at least turn the radio down so that we’re not shouting over it?”

“Knock yourself out, but I have a feeling we’re going to end up shouting anyway,” she said as she turned to face him with her arms crossed over her chest.

He turned the volume down to an acceptable level. “That may be true, but at least it will be more effective if the radio isn’t blaring.”

Kerrigan grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and offered it to him. Dominic took it, knowing he was going to need something to still his nerves, and waited while Kerrigan grabbed one for herself. He loved that she drank beer straight from the bottle instead of pouring it into a glass or mixing up one of those fruity drinks with an umbrella sticking out of it.

“So…talk.” She shut the refrigerator door and threw her bottle cap across the room at the trashcan. It landed perfectly inside.

She was really going to have to stop being so damn sexy if she expected him to be able to get through the conversation without taking her right there on the kitchen table.

“About us,” Dominic started, wiping the image from his mind.

“What about
us
? There is no
us
,” Kerrigan said sarcastically, holding up her fingers to form quotations around the word “us” each time she said it. “There’s me…and then there’s you and, oh what’s that slut’s name that you’ve been running off to every night? Sinclair, right? Oh, and that’s
after
you’ve spent the day making out with me and acting like we’re sure as hell a whole lot more than friends. Gotta’ give you props for the whole going to work all night, every night thing. That was real smooth.”

Yep, she was pissed.

Dominic stepped toward her, but she held up her hand.

“Stop right there,” she warned him. “It’s much too easy for me to lose my bearings and forget why I’m mad at you when you’re in close proximity to me, and I’m not about to let you get away with anything. So you just keep your distance.”

“Fair enough,” Dominic conceded. He turned his back to the counter and leaned against it, crossing his legs at the ankles before continuing. “Kerrigan, there are things about me that you don’t know. Things that will likely disgust you.”

“Like how you’re a two-timing whoremonger?” Kerrigan challenged, not giving him a chance to finish. “Face it, Dominic, you’re a whoremonging addict. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Say it with me…I. Am. A. Whoremonger.”

Dominic took a deep breath to keep his temper in check. He deserved the way she was lashing out, even if he knew what she was saying wasn’t true.

“I’m not a whoremonger.” His voice strained with the control it took not to get upset. “And, I am most certainly not two-timing you.”

“Oh. Well then you’re just a tease. Is that it?” she asked, the volume of her voice rising. “You just enjoy torturing me? Making me look like a fool? Making me think there’s something going on between the two of us? And while I’m throwing myself at you,
you’re
the one who always pulls away. Probably because you’re running off in the middle of the night to go meet your little hoochie momma. Is that it?”

“No, that’s not…” Dominic started, but Kerrigan cut him off again.

“I bet you get a real kick out of it, don’t you? Is it funny? Get a good laugh, Dominic? Do you and your whore sit around and talk about the way you lead me on as some sick, twisted form of foreplay?”

She just kept spouting out the accusations, never really expecting an answer from him. Her arms flailed around wildly in the air, the veins in her neck were in danger of bursting, and if her eyes narrowed any more, there was no way she would be able to see anything.

She was beyond pissed.

“Let me guess. You don’t find me attractive? Huh? Just not your cup of tea? Are my tits not big enough?” she asked, cupping them in her hands and pushing them together. Dominic tried hard not to stare at them, really he did. But men just can’t
not
look when a perfect rack is being shoved in their face.

“Well obviously the tits aren’t the problem, you perv!” Kerrigan crossed her arms over her chest to shield them from his ogling. “Oh, I’ve got it! I don’t have enough junk in the trunk. Right? Is that it? My badonk-a-donk not honky tonk enough for you? Answer me!”

Kerrigan was seeing red, seething with anger. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Dominic must have had balls of steel to want to have that conversation with her. She was convinced he had used her for his own entertainment purposes. Maybe he was one of those men that had to have the constant attention of the opposite sex to make him feel more confident. He hadn’t so much as moved past first base with her, and he was sleeping with another woman. She was most pissed about the fact that he acted like he was her friend, like they were in this thing together, like he shared her feelings. But he was sharing his body with someone else. It was like he had this whole other life that didn’t include her.

And he was just standing there looking like sex on legs, with a blank look on his face.

“Say something dammit!”

“Are you actually going to let me talk this time?”

Kerrigan glowered at him.

“Okay then. First of all, no matter what Sinclair said, I most definitely am not sleeping with her. She and I have a sordid past that I can’t go into with you right now, but know that I can’t stand her. That woman is evil. She’ll say and do anything to get what she wants. She was just trying to get under my skin and make you think shit’s going on between her and me so that she can come between us. I promise I’m not lying about that.

Secondly, your tits are perfect,” he said, eyeing her chest and admiring how ample her cleavage looked. “Like,
really
perfect. Especially in that shirt you’ve got on right now.”

Kerrigan crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously as she huffed and turned her head away, refusing to look at him.

“As for the honky tonk badonk-a-donk, I seriously don’t have a clue what the hell that even means. I don’t have a hoochie momma or a whore. And, yes, it’s my fault that things get a little heated between the two of us, but I find that I can’t help myself around you. Believe me, it’s no picnic in the park for me either when I have to stop the
both
of us from letting it go too far. Not pleasant,
at all
. And I assure you, should we ever get that far, you will most definitely find out my definition of foreplay, and I dare say you just might enjoy it. Last, but certainly not least,” he said and then looked around her to ogle her ass. “You most
definitely
have enough junk in the trunk.”

Kerrigan’s head snapped in his direction, and her jaw dropped before it snapped back shut and her eyes narrowed.

Dominic ignored the death glare and took his chances, stepping to her and placing a hand on each of her arms to caress the sensitive skin on the underside. The action seemed to be effective at taming the savage beast inside her that was ready to rip his head off moments before.

“I’m crazy about
you
, Kerrigan,” he all but whispered. “Can’t you see that?”

The icy walls she had so carefully constructed melted with his words. “You have a funny way of showing it.” She pouted, looking down at their feet.

“What? Stealing kisses, making excuses to touch you, to be in the same room with you…that’s not proof enough?” He shook his head and ducked down so that he could see her face. “Querida, you know the affect you have on me because you feel the same way, too.”

Dominic took her hand, and Kerrigan unfolded her arms without resistance. He pulled her closer and placed the palm of her hand to his chest, just over his heart. She could feel his heart thumping erratically under his shirt.

“Take my heart. It’s all I have left. I would rip it out and serve it to you on a silver platter if I thought it would make you happy. But as for my soul…well, that already belongs to you. Mi alma es tuya. Remember? My soul is yours.”

And, that would be the point where Kerrigan melted into a puddle of goo at that imperfect man’s perfect feet.

“If you feel that way, then why do you keep pushing me away? And, are you really going to work every night?”

Dominic sighed, not really knowing how to answer her. This was it, the part where she goes running and screaming through the streets of St. Augustine shouting at the top of her lungs that she’s living with a freak, a real live monster straight out of the pages of some gruesome Brothers Grimm fairytale. The townspeople will come marching down the street carrying pitchforks and torches, ready to carry him off to God knows where, and put him on display for the whole world to see what a freak of nature he really was. What he wouldn’t have done for a bell tower to hide away in right about then.

Kerrigan pulled away from him. “I’m going to guess that your lack of an answer
is
the answer.”

“No, no wait,” Dominic said, flustered. She probably wouldn’t believe him if he just told her. He would have to show her because, like they say, seeing is believing. “Come to my room tonight, and I’ll explain everything.”

There was a knock on the door which Kerrigan found weird because the only people that ever visited them were their friends, and they never knocked. She looked back to Dominic who was looking in the direction of the door as well with the same confused look on his face. He leaned down and gave her a chaste, but sweet kiss on the lips before he walked toward the front room.

Kerrigan placed her fingertips where his lips had met hers, and a small smile crept up on her face. The smile completely vanished when Dominic opened the front door and she found out the identity of their mystery guest.

“Dominigo! Where’s my little wifey?” Jackson’s voice greeted him.